The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
Jonathon Naylor Editor Former NOR-MAN Regional Health Authority CEO Helga Bryant has been chosen to lead the new RHA that will cover virtually all of northern Manitoba. But there's still no word on whether Bryant will be based in Flin Flon, home of the now-defunct NRHA, or Thompson, where the also-defunct Burntwood RHA was headquartered. Bryant and the other CEOs of Manitoba's new, larger RHAs were announced late last week following word the provincially ordered RHA mergers had been completed. Bryant, a registered nurse from the Brandon area, joined the NRHA as interim CEO in May 2011. In January 2012, she was promoted to permanent CEO, likely unaware that the organization was just months away from folding. In April, Health Minister Theresa Oswald ordered the NOR-MAN and Burntwood RHAs to amalgamate, with a CEO to be named at a later date. Bryant worked as a clinical practice nurse in Brandon for 19 years. In time she served as executive director of the regulatory body for Manitoba's registered nurses, and was vice-president of Acute Care and Diagnostic Services for the Brandon Regional Health Authority. She was also vice-president and chief nursing officer of Winnipeg's Health Sciences Centre, and co-authored a 2001 report for the province relative to recommendations on pediatric cardiac surgery. At a luncheon earlier this year, Bryant reached back to her time as a nurse in describing her approach to remaking the NRHA. 'I can remember patients' names, which bed they were in, what time of day a certain death happened,' she said. 'Or a certain incident happened where there was this incredible connection between myself and my patient.' It's that type of connection that Bryant said she hoped to foster between NRHA staff and those receiving care. The new northern RHA _ which has been referred to as both the Northern Health Region and the Northern Regional Health Authority _ covers all of northern Manitoba except for Churchill.
